Counterfeit or illegally produced bearings are entering this country at an increased rate.  The Department of Homeland Security has seized ten shipments of counterfeit bearings already this year compared to only two seizures between 2000 and 2008.  Why the alarming increase in counterfeit product?  Bearings are a highly valued commodity.  In an effort to reduce costs in a slowing economy, many companies have tried to purchase bearings from unauthorized vendors.  While some of these vendors import product legally, many import product legally, many import product from unknown sources.  These companies claim to be factory authorized providers of legitimate product.  Nothing could be further from the truth!

Globally, NTN is a charter member of the World Bearing Association (WBA).  The WBA has helped to coordinate several raids in China where over 80% of the counterfeit product seized by the US Customs originated from.  In August, the WBA organized raids in China through local officials on nine bearing factories and six warehouses siezing over 950,000 counterfeit bearings/boxes involving seven different trademarks and companies.  The WBA is also working to help educate users of the dangers of using counterfeit product.

In the United States, NTN has joined the anti-counterfeit working committee within the American Bearing Manufacturers Association (ABMA).  This committee will work to help educate the US Customs personnel to enhance their ability to recognize counterfeit product as well as to educate the distribution and end user community on the dangers in using conterfeit product.

NTN is currently working with US Customs.  In 2009 NTN had helped them seize two shipments of counterfeit NTN branded bearings.  They dispatched an engineer to the port of entry where he was able to verify that the produt was indeed counterfeit! They are in the process of taking legal action against the importer.  The packaging was a very good replication of NTN packaging, however, their engineers found the product to be very poorly made.

After speaking with a few of our sales representatives from different companies; this is a serious problem plaguing them all.  What can you do to help?  Help promote awareness of this issue to end users and encourage end users to only purchase product fom authorized distributors.  Please remember, if the price is too good to be true, it is probably counterfeit.

Watch for future counterfeit industrial parts blogs.